EUROPE AND MEDIA

HISTORY ON TELEVISION AND THE WEB

2006-2014

Project description

Project description

Europa and Media”: History on television and on the web
promoted by
– Regione Emilia-Romagna – Assemblea Legislativa
– Centro Europe Direct
-Istituto per la Storia e le Memorie del 900 Parri”
(coordinators: Daniela Asquini, Luisa Cigognetti, Pierre Sorlin, Lorenza Servetti)
Following an initiative by the Emilia-Romagna Region, Istituto Parri started in 2006 a research on the representation of history in European television networks. The aim of the research was fourfold. It was:
– given the importance of television in information, detecting the subjects and times represented on TV, to have an insight into how historical references are shaped in each country;
– measuring the importance of programmes dealing fully or partly with European history;
– understanding if and how some issues belonging to a country’s history could be dealt with from a European perspective;
– making proposals for the production of programmes on European history to be presented to the EU in Brussels.

The research activity was based on a series of questionnaires on the evolution of historical representation, on the division between public or private networks and specialized networks and on successful historical programmes. During the research, participants, using some exemplary programme excerpts, analysed their country’s notion of history and studied the diffusion of European history on TV.
The importance of television in the creation of an historical memory is unquestionable but the question remains to understand how viewers interpret and memorized what they have seen on the screen.
It is now possible to answer at least partially this query by recourse to Internet, more precisely by looking at the messages that circulate daily on the web, especially in occasion of anniversaries, or when political or economic crisis conjure up personal memories, historical common places and stereotyped tales.
After analysing the messages of television we gauged the reception and interpretation of historical notions by people who are not involved in the study of history.
The research took two years: 2012-2013.
The objectives were:
1th list the most relevant historical sites existing in each country, sites of history telling, educational sites, sites of reviews online. This made it possible to characterize the current view on history in each country, to compare the different countries and to know what are the historical problems more often explored.
2th find, in blogs and social networks, (in particular Facebook) allusions at historical questions. We started from the assumption that bloggers use ideas or images found in various sources that they transform, creating thus a new version of past events.

2016 update

Project description

Project description

The E-Story Observatory, wants to give to teachers and researchers some useful indications about the major trends of representation of History through multimedia languages and in particular how changes the representations in television programmes and on the web. During the project we will monitor the situation in the partners countries.

Every partners are mapping at local level how television networks represent History in TV programs and how circulate on the web the “visions” of History.

We are now presenting the first update, regarding 2016

2017 update

Project description

Project description

The E-Story Observatory, wants to give to teachers and researchers some useful indications about the major trends of representation of History through multimedia languages and in particular how changes the representations in television programmes and on the web. During the project we will monitor the situation in the partners countries.

Every partners are mapping at local level how television networks represent History in TV programs and how circulate on the web the “visions” of History.